


Treasure

by AnselaJonla



Series: Prompt fills [37]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnselaJonla/pseuds/AnselaJonla
Summary: A fic written for a prompt on the r/WritingPrompts subreddit:[WP] All dragons hoard valuable things, but what they consider valuable is rather subjective, which a certain knight soon discovers...
Series: Prompt fills [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1097823
Kudos: 2





	Treasure

Meruin watched silently from a hidden ledge as the human crept into the lair. A human, here to kill and steal. Why couldn't they just leave Meruin alone?

Meruin didn't like killing humans. They were small and bony and covered in metal, not soft and juicy like a sheep. And the humans got so _grumpy_ when one of their own was killed, sending more and more pointy metal men until they ran out of them for a bit. Maybe Meruin could scare this one off, without killing it? Yes, that might work. Meruin hadn't heard of it working before, but had any of the kin actually _tried_?

Meruin felt the throat-fire building. The human was touching its treasure. How _dare_ it? It was going to steal Meruin's hoard, like humans _always_ did. Meruin wouldn't allow it!

Spreading ochre wings wide, Meruin launched from the ledge with a bellow. The knight turned round, trying to pull the metal stick from its not-metal covering. Meruin slammed into the knight on landing, knocking the human to the floor. A paw almost as big as the human's chest held it down.

Up close the human looked funny. Meruin had never been this close to a human before. None had ever come to Meruin's cave, not in the two-year since leaving Paarenya's brood cave. And it smelled weird, like sheep mixed with steel.

The treasure was still grasped in the human's hand. Meruin growled, and used the tip of a wing to move the treasure away. The human wouldn't steal today.

With the throat-fire still glowing in warning, Meruin carefully stepped away from the human. Meruin's tail lashed from side to side as it scrambled to its feet - how did it move on just two legs? - and ran for the entrance to Meruin's lair?

Maybe Meruin could live here without killing humans?

Hey, wait... _how_ did the human manage to steal a treasure? AAARGH!

* * *

Nedric waved the bar maid down to bring him another beer. He had practically the entire bar enthralled in the tale of his encounter with the dragon laired above the village. The king had sent him to assess the threat, and he'd been fully prepared for a fight with a fully grown beast. The villagers who'd raised the alarm had been glad to see him alive, and had practically dragged him into the pub to hear his story on his return. And he was spinning a great tale, a story of a fierce battle ending in him wounding the dragon so severely that it retreated out of his reach, with injuries that would see it being little threat to the village for quite some time.

It was a lie, but a necessary one. The villagers didn't need to know the truth. They didn't need to know that the dragon roosting in the mountains was a horse-sized juvenile, still bearing the ochre scales of an unsexed juvenile. Telling them would serve no purpose except to get them all killed. They'd convince themselves that they could handle a juvenile dragon, and they'd try to kill it, only to get killed themselves.

Nedric had seen it all before, far too many times. Even juveniles were dangerous, to unarmoured and inadequately armed humans.

As for why he didn't kill it, to prevent it growing? The annual cull was over, the king's alchemists already had a glut of juvenile ochre scales. It was female navy or male emerald that were in short supply, and this dragon didn't have a hint of _either_.

At least now Nedric didn't need to go back. He touched the object in his pocket. It would suffice for the magicians to form a scrying link to this lair. It was a pity he didn't get the larger one, but the dragon was pretty adamant that he let the child's soft toy go. All he managed to get was a smaller one, a sky blue horse with a rainbow coloured mane and tail. Weird.


End file.
